Printer Problems

by Andriette
(South Africa)

My computer crashed a while back and I decide to take the plunge and upgrade and then bought Windows 7 as well. I find windows 7 a bit of a let down since outlook and office is not included and I had to get them separately (the whole package cost me much more that I bargained for).

I now run into another problem regarding my printer. I have a HP Laserjet 1010 printer but just can't get it to install. It keeps on aborting the installation about halfway through. I really don't want (and can't afford) to get another printer now.

Any suggestions for me?

Answer

It looks like you're not the only one to have trouble with this printer. I did some research for you and discovered that this printer is not being supported by HP for Windows 7. That being said, you'll might still get it to work for you if you have some time to play with it.

First, download a Vista driver online from the hp website.

Extract the file you just downloaded.

Now click on start, go to devices and printers, then select add printer.

Click add local printer, then select your current connection.

After clicking next, you'll see a list of printers, click on have disk, direct this to the location on the unzipped folder you just downloaded. Install with the Vista drivers either 32 or 64 bit for the version on Windows that you're using. You will probably get errors, continue until the install is finished.

If that worked, great. If not, you can try installing a different HP Laserjet driver included with Windows 7. To do this, follow the same steps above, until you get to have disk.

This time, on the left, choose HP, on the right choose HP Laserjet 1015. After it's installed give it a shot. This trick has worked for me several times. Currently, my printer installed on my computer is an HP Deskjet, it was also not supported but I did find a different driver that did work for me. In fact I haven't had any trouble with it at all.

Be patient, try different drivers for Vista, and hopefully you'll find something that works for you. When you do, back it up along with a text file of what you did if you ever need to install it again.